Saturday, 31 October 2015

Halloween would not be completed without a few scary stories. Tonight I will share at least one. As I have been very busy this month, it will sadly not be one of my own creation, but something I found elsewhere. I was looking for a take on the story of Jack O'Lantern on YouTube and found plenty of them. I have settled on this one, to my own surprise taken from a Catholic parish church somewhere in the US (I think). It is ironic, because I am an atheist and former Catholic, nevertheless I actually think he got the story right. And at least, unlike too many Christians, this one seems to love Halloween, even trick or treat. So after due consideration and in spite of the preaching the man (priest?) does in the end of his video, it is the one I decided to upload for tonight. Still, the storyteller that I am sometimes can't help but think that my own take on the legend of Jack O'Lantern is better, if I can say so myself (you can read part one here and part two there). I wrote a few more tales of Jack O'Lantern through the years on this blog, if you are curious or into spooky reads. I will conclude this post saying that tonight I walked while children were doing trick or treat and I noticed that the spirit of Stingy Jack was very much alive.

Again, happy Halloween everyone! It is only when darkness falls that it is Halloween in its full glory, but I intend to enjoy this eerie autumn day as well. To start it, I am having pumpkin chai from David's Tea today. In my Perfect Tea Mug with Jack O'Lanterns on it. I am a man of habits and rituals, this one is fairly recent, because I did not have pumpkin chai or a Halloween mug before 2013 (although I had tried to find a Halloween themed mug before), but it is one I now keep for all my countdown to Halloween, and for Halloween day when I can have time to drink it in the morning.

Black cats and goblins and broomsticks and ghosts, Covens of
witches with all of their hosts You may think they scare me, You're
probably right Black cats and goblins On Halloween night Trick or
treat!

I took the nursery rhyme which opens the movie Halloween. Which I am going to watch tonight. As the clock strikes midnight, and we are finally, finally on the 31st of October. So to all my fellow Halloween loving friends in the blogosphere and elsewhere, I want to wish you a Happy Halloween! This is one of the three Jack O'Lanterns I made yesterday and the one I am most proud of. I thought I would start Halloween with a picture of it. Again, happy Halloween. I wish you all a very spooky night.

We are now the 30th of October, the eve of All Hallow's Eve, Samhain, Halloween. I carved pumpkins, three of them, you can see them on the picture above. My favourite is the one on the left. So I am waiting for the witching hour, when it will be Halloween. Reading horror stories, watching horror movies, maybe drinking some spooky beers... I thought that I would share the Jack O'Lanterns with you, waiting until midnight. Waiting for Halloween is so long during the year, yet it seems that it all comes too early and I feel like I have never done enough.

Thursday, 29 October 2015

This is the first Jack O'Lantern I made for Halloween 2015. I just finished it, not even five minutes ago (as I am typing this), from the smallest pumpkin I bought. Not the greatest Jack or the greatest picture, I am taking it from my mobile phone camera and I am struggling with the light. But I think it is sufficiently spooky. I aimed for dumb yet evil, tried to give him a stupid smile that also looked hungry, like he could take a bite from you. Did it work? I did it did. I don't want my Jack O'Lanterns to look nice, I want them to look nasty and devilish, as if the pumpkins they are made of grew by the gates of Hell and the fire that is in them came from the hottest fires the devils can make. Tell me if it gives you nightmares.

Wednesday, 28 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween post, I am blogging again about a ghostly owl. I mused about them a few years ago and they appear on this blog from time to time. They almost unmistakably appear around Halloween and for my countdown to Halloween post. They already appeared this year. But I wanted one post about a "real" one, not an image, a flesh and blood and feathers owl. So here it is. There was a display of birds of prey one day during our holidays in York. There were a few ghostly looking owls, with fiery orange eyes. I simply love it. I am always impressed by owls and never get bored watching them. Anyway, you always need one howling to bring a bit of spooky atmosphere. You cannot hear this one, but you can enjoy his fiery eye.

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

It is my fourth blog post tonight and my third one that is Halloween-related. Well, indirectly Halloween related, as it was not my intention writing it. Because today is National Black Cat Day and I absolutely wanted to mention it. Because black cats are the least adopted among all the cats. I love black cats and this is a proper time to give them an homage. And because I once had a black cat, named Odin, and I wanted to commemorate him today. He is the one on the picture accompanying this post. Black cats are also associated with Halloween and I was very lucky to have Odin on Halloween with me, back in 2013. I often blogged about him, in fact I blogged about him so much that I don't have any new picture of him left, this one I uploaded on the blog before. Odin was an amazing cat and I have yet to find one that took my heart like he did. I cannot understand why black cats have such bad reputation. I always loved them even more than other cats, and Odin was, well, he was the darkest, most precious jewel among them. So anyway, here's to all the black cats in the world, let them all find a loving home.

Tonight is the full moon, a time for... well, a time for werewolves, with Halloween being imminent and all, it is even more a time for werewolves. So for my countdown to Halloween post, I wanted something werewolf related. I thought I would share (figuratively speaking) a beer I drank this weekend in a local pub, which would be very fitting for tonight. It is from Belhaven Brewery and is fittingly called Howell At The Moon. It is a very dark ale, that tastes dark as much as it looks. A fitting beer for a wolf, or a man turning into one.
I felt very much like a werewolf drinking it. Where I come from, being a heathen and a drinker is actually be enough to risk becoming a werewolf, so this beer might just be what I need to grow fangs, claws and hairs. Well, more hairs than I have now. And even if it does not, it's a perfect beer for a night of full moon when Halloween is around the corner.

Monday, 26 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween post, I am blogging again about a ghost story by M.R. James. This time, it has the originality to have the ghosts as tell tale sign of evil rather than the source of evil itself, although they remain terrifying. The villain of the story is actually a warlock. I am talking of Lost Hearts. You can read it online here. Now, I wanted especially to show you a particularly creepy scene from the BBC adaptation of the short story. In the adaptation, the climax that was in the original short story set on New Year's Eve has been moved to... All Hallow's Eve. So it is even more fitting to have it here. The scene below shows that if childhood is the source of many primal fears, children themselves can be a source of terror. Tell me what you think of it.

Sunday, 25 October 2015

I blogged yesterday about the Golden Fleece Inn, allegedly the most haunted pub in York. I mentioned that I would blog more about it and its ghostly visitors and residents. Tonight here is one, this bottle of whiskey. As you see on the picture, there is a word claiming it is haunted. In brackets and small print, it tells us to ask the staff about it. So curious, I asked one of the barmaids, what was haunting it and she answered: "It's full of spirit." Which I thought was very funny. Enough to make it a great unknown line. I have been wanting to share it for a while. Anyway, so there is at least one true spirit haunting the pub.

I found this image on my Facebook feed, announcing It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on the 20th of October on ABC. I would have missed it anyway, but it means I missed telling my American and North American readers to watch it. Shame on me and accept my apologies. It does not air in England, or at least I have never seen it being featured on any channel. I have not seen the cartoon in ages, while it was a classic I never missed when I was living in Québec. We had it taped on VHS to make sure we would never miss it once. Now my brother PJ has it on DVD. It is one of the few non horror movies I have on my to watch list for Halloween. You can read a post on it here. And you can read a brilliant analysis of why this cartoon is so clever and indeed profound here. Actually, thinking about how often I missed it since I live in the UK, I have decided to get my hand on it. Until then, here is an abstract from YouTube, where Linus explains pretty much what this is all about:

Saturday, 24 October 2015

This is tonight's second countdown to Halloween post and I thought I would blog about one of the most prominent villains of Halloween,: the witch. As I mentioned back in 2012, I have not blogged enough about her. I say villain because I cannot say monster: the witch is very much a human creature, she just happened to practice witchcraft. And I know that witches were not always considered evil and are still not nowadays: they gained a bad reputation partially because the Church gave them one and because people too often fear what they don't understand. Old ladies with some hands on knowledge of medicine were executed because of the superstition of men.

Still, as a character of horror stories and an archetype, the evil witch is a great villain. She is an poisoner, she is in league with the Devil, she shows no remorse to hurt young children and animals. If they are seen with cats, toads and other animals, let us not ignore their true nature: these are devils, familiar spirits, that have taken the shape of these beasts. The witch is the female, folkloric ancestor of the serial killer or the child abductor. Or simply the nosy, busybody neighbour, who can be quite malevolent herself. I know, I had one as a neighbour. And she didn't even know she was a witch. As a villain of old fiction, she deserves a place in the new one and the new horror stories. We often see her in Halloween imagery, next to Jack O'Lanterns or carved in a pumpkin as a Jack O'Lantern, as you see here on these pictures. It is about time to see them also in Halloween stories.

For today's (first?) countdown to Halloween, I will blog about a pub in York, one of the ncie discoveries of our last holidays there: the Golden Fleece Inn. It boasts itself to be the most haunted pub in York. However, like the most haunted castle in England, I didn't see any ghost during our visit, in spite of keeping my eyes and mind wide open and more importantly, in spite of dirnking in the whole evening a rather important quantity of beer. Not that I am a big drinker, but as it was pouring, we were waiting for a taxi that came only very late. By that time, I was suspecting the driver was afraid to stop by. He showed up in the end, but the ghosts were absent

They do make a big deal of the phantoms in this pub. More than the Kingsbridge Inn in Devon, which is another allegedly haunted pub I visited. I guess the people at the Golden Fleece has been doing it for much longer. York, like Devon, has a big part of its tourist industry based on ghost stories and paranormal. We are greeted by this sign at the door of the Golden Fleece and one of York's many ghost walks starts from the pub. They seem quite popular. If it had not been so rainy, we might have gone to one, but when it rains, I'd rather be warm and dry in a cosy English pub drinking real ale than out in the rain. If I am to meet a ghost, friendly or evil, might as well be in a place where the spooky atmosphere does not get in the way of comfort. And the Golden Fleece offers both atmosphere and comfort. I love any old English pub with a bit of history, the ghosts, or at least the ghost stories are a bonus.

So anyway, we saw no real ghosts. Of course, absence of evidence is no evidence of absence. So there might have been some, for all I know they might even have been legions. And there are also a few made up ones, which I spent a good deal of time finding and taking pictures of, to make sure at least they existed and it was not the beer that was making me see things. Until Halloween come, I will show a few of them in another post. But let me introduce you to the main one and the officious mascot of the Golden Fleece: Saul Goodfellow, the pub's most (shall we say) permanent punter. He has his own blog, his own Twitter account, his own YouTube account and he is prominently featured on their Facebook page. He is thus a very modern ghost, whatever his age might be. And a face and overall demeanor that gives you both a pleasant chill and a chuckle. He is a good fellow all right.

Friday, 23 October 2015

Quick countdown to Halloween blog post tonight: I wanted to signal that the Halloween collection of David's Tea has been available for some time. For the lucky ones in Canada and the US, this is your chance. I will not be able to buy all their fancy stuff, but I have my stock of pumpkin chai, so everything is right in the world. And I shamelessly took this image from their Facebook page. A cemetary surrounded by woodlands, a spooky owl, a wolf owling at a full moon... What's not to love. You can find the image on their cups. Just for this it is worth stopping in one of their shops.

Thursday, 22 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween post, I am plugging (again) a story by M.R. James. It is a ghost story, although the first time I read it it was in an anthology of vampire stories. The undead villain of the story shares the characteristics of both creatures, without clearly taking the shape of one or the other. Let's just say he is one particularly malevolent ghost and not unlike some other famous count of another great classic horror story. It may be one of the most chilling tale written of the mild mannered academic. I am referring to Count Magnus. You can read it on this website and if you feel more like listening to it, see (well, listen to, really) this YouTube video. The action is set in Sweden, which is in this story just as eerie and darkly exotic as the most remote corner of Transylvania. The protagonist is Mr Wraxall, an academic, like most of James's protagonists. Like many the others, there is nothing heroic about him. He has an overwhelming curiosity mixed with carelessness that will unleash terrifying forces. Anyway, I will say no more, I don't want to spoil your first chill discovering the story for yourself. The Halloween season would not be completed without M.R. James. Enjoy.

Wednesday, 21 October 2015

I took this picture last year, at the local sweet shop, but it is the same this year. Black cats, witches, ghosts, spiders and of course, of course Jack O'Lanterns, it is one of the shops here that takes Halloween very seriously. As they should, since Halloween is also a celebration of gluttony. I usually buy a cauldron full of chocolates (well, other stuff too but mainly chocolates) from them (you can see one here). I will buy it again this year I expect, because Halloween is also about sweets.

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween, I present you another ghost, but a specific type. This image can be found in All About Ghosts, the schlocky paranormal book that haunted (literally) my childhood and fired up my imagination. You can read more about it here. I found this image particularly haunting (excuse the pun). This cloaked phantom is a graveyard guardian. According to the book, unlike what many think, you will not find many ghosts in a cemetery because ghosts haunt the place of their death, not their burial. Only one ghost exists in the graveyard: the graveyard guardian, the spirit of the first person to have been buried in it. So he protects the place against troublemakers and evil spirits (who should have been haunting their place of death anyway, right?). And the book added that in ancient Europe, they sometimes sacrificed a living person to make sure the graveyard had a guardian.

Now what I wonder as an adult is: where the heck did they take their info from? I am to say the least very skeptical about this claim. That said, as a child and even now, I found and find the idea fascinating. I once blogged that the issue with ghosts in scary stories is that they are all appearance and represent no physical menace. They may induce terror, but have no claws to shred with or fangs to bite with. While this is not quite true and many stories managed to have ghosts that represent at least partially a concrete menace, often the ghost is an appearance. But this one, well, he is a guardian. He must have coercive powers to guard. And he must be committed to his mission, if not fanatical about it. That he might have been sacrificed to fulfill his duty makes it all the more sinister. And there is the image itself. Since I saw it, I think about it every time I walk by or through a graveyard. I would love to read a scary story about such ghost. Or write one, if I can.

Monday, 19 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween post (although I already blogged one in French), I thought I'd do something lighter, since it is Monday and all. So here is a monologue of Stephen Fry which parodies Dracula, my favourite horror novel. Apparently, its official title is The Letter, but I have known it as Dracula's Guest and found it at complete random, when I was looking for a dramatization of the short story. Fry mocks with affection the tropes of Gothic horror and vampire fiction, including the epistolary narrative, and it is hilarious.

Sunday, 18 October 2015

So this is today's countdown to Halloween post. I don't know if it is because I discovered last summer in the town of Marlowthe home of the Shelleys, where Mary Shelley completed the writing of Frankenstein, but it seems that this year's countdown to Halloween is marked by a rediscovery of the novel. I haven't re-read it yet, but when I was in Montreal, I stumbled in a second hand bookshop upon a book of essays about the myth of Frankenstein: Frankenstein (Figures mythiques). It has become part of my Halloween reading list. And it is a fascinating rediscovery. I am maybe one of the few people who first discovered the story not through its many loosely based adaptations, but directly from the original novel, when I was a young teenager. Like I mentioned here, I don't consider Mary Shelley's most famous to be pure horror story. In fact, I think it is more supernatural tragedy with a hint of what would later be called science fiction (although I'd argue that the scifi elements are completely involuntary). Still, because of the icon that the creature and his creator has become, because it is an essential part of Halloween imagery, it deserved to be mentioned here. Still, I recommend to everyone to discover the novel in its own terms, forgetting the many adaptations.

I will write my countdown to Halloween later on today. Right now, this is a blog about autumn and Calvin and Hobbes. I re-read this particular strip recently and I wanted to share it with you. Autumn is now my favourite season, but to be honest it was not entirely the case when I was a child. Especially not on Sunday, for the reasons expressed in this cartoon: there was school the next day, lights were going down early. Then again I always loved the colours, so I also shared Hobbes' views. Because it is both funny and explains in a nutshell both autumn and Sunday melancholy, I decided to share it on the blog.

Saturday, 17 October 2015

For today's countdown to Halloween, please see this post. Tonight, I want to mention that I am going through another countdown and another kind of ghost: the countdown to the upcoming Bond movie Spectre. It is coming near the end of the month and I cannot wait to see it. As you know, I'm a huge Bond fan. So this is something else I am looking forward to. To cope with the wait, I have been watching over and over again the trailers and reading articles about the movie. And it reminded me that I had not uploaded the latest trailer on Vraie Fiction. So here it is.

I took this picture two years ago, on the Plateau Mont-Royal. In Montreal, people decorate for Halloween everywhere from the very first day of October, sometimes before. It was at the entrance of a hairdresser. I thought I would upload it today as a countdown to Halloween post, just because I thought it was funny. And also because I need a haircut. This post is thus a reminder. It is also maybe one of the most trivial I have written in a long while. But it is a funny display.

Friday, 16 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween post, I will blog again about literature. I recently ordered The Dead of Night: the Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions because I wanted to read more of him. Like for most ghost story writers I know about, I discovered Oliver Onions in The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories. More precisely, The Cigarette Case, which I have been unable to find online. I want my horror stories collection (which is getting bigger and bigger every year) to be made of full work from these writers and not only anthologies, so I ordered this book in early October. It arrived a few days later and... And I was surprised to find that the book is 657 pages long! Usually, the books of Wordsworth Editions are between 200 and 300 pages long. I don't think I will have time to start reading it this year, I have many horror stories books to finish, but it will be on my reading list for next year. I cannot believe sometimes I am in my late thirties and it took me so long to discover all these authors.

Thursday, 15 October 2015

As it is the case every year for my countdown to Halloween, I post here an interpretation of the Danse Macabre of Camille Saint-Saëns. This year is no exception. I was wondering which one to choose, among all the ones available on YouTube. After many hesitations, I decided to follow my heart and go for the one I had already uploaded back in 2012. The animated short movie Midnight Dance by John McCloskey. It is so atmospheric, it is autumnal, the Grim Reaper is simultaneously playful and sinister, it is so perfect for Halloween. Every time I watch it I discover something new in it. So here it is. Tell me if you enjoyed it.

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween post, I carry on about haunted places. On Sunday, I blogged about a haunted castle, yesterday about a haunted hotel (more precisely a haunted hotel room) in a work of fiction. So here is a picture that my wife took when she was in the bus on her way to uni. It is of a small, dingy, abandoned house... Which looks a lot like a haunted house would, if there are such things as haunted houses (which I seriously doubt). An abandoned house that is in a state of disrepair always looks a bit haunted, certainly malevolent. I blogged about haunted houses back in 2010. I am fascinated by them since childhood, but I have a problem with haunted houses as plot device: the moment ghosts start appearing, anyone can just leave the darn place. I am still wondering how I could write the story of a haunted house and make it believable. Looking at this one, this home that is no longer home sweet home, I can at least image many dangers in its narrow space: demons summoned by careless teenagers, murderous madmen, werewolves, vampires... And ghosts. At least one ghost. But why would the living go there and stay when things start getting ugly, that is the big question to answer. And you, what does this picture inspire you?

Tuesday, 13 October 2015

We are the 13th of October, so for tonight's countdown to Halloween's post, I have decided to share with you a ghost story by M.R James, aptly named Number 13. It is set in a hotel/inn in Viborg, Denmark, where like in many hotels, the room number 13 does not exist. Or does it? Because slowly, the narrator slowly discovers that there is a sinister presence in the hotel, barely perceptible at first, and a room that should not exist appears in the middle of the night. Like all of M.R. James story, the seemingly mundane situation of the beginning gradually disintegrate until the gruesome climax. Because when the ghost reveals itself (sort of), he is often gruesome in the stories of M.R. James.

As for his own Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to You My Lad, another favourite of mine (read more about it here), it is a horror story set in a hotel, a fairly common trope in ghost stories. You can read about another such ghost story in a hotel setting on this post from last year. More than triskaidekaphobia (the fear of number 13), it is claustrophobia that is featured here. The bedroom of the protagonist literally shrinks as evil manifests itself. But I don't want to give too much away. You can read it on this website. If you are feeling lazy, you can also watch on YouTube the BBC adaptation from 2006, which I enjoyed too. But I would recommend that you read first the original, which is far superior, especially the climax. And please comment and tell me what you think.

Monday, 12 October 2015

For tonight's countdown to Halloween's post, I have decided to plug tonight's dinner: the soup of the month of New Covent Garden Soup Co. Which is called this year Scream of Pumpkin. If this sounds familiar, it is because it is. I blogged about these Halloween themed soups before and I think I might make it a tradition every year, make one post of the countdown about the soup. A tradition within a tradition, in a way. So in 2012 I mentioned the Ghoulash, in 2014 the pumpkin, Stilton and sage soup (unimaginative name, but still my favourite so far) and as early as 2008 the Hocus Pocus (I don't remember much about this one).

So, how does Scream of Pumpkin
compare to the others? It is not as thick or as filling as the Stilton one or the Ghoulash. It has interesting ingredients: apart from the pumpkin (always good in a soup), carrots and the tomatoes, it also has blood orange, which gives it an unusual flavour. It also has garlic, apparently to keep the vampires at bay. So it is tasty, albeit not as hearty as I'd except an October soup to be. We had it with garlic bread, our usual accompaniment with soup. So we had extra garlic to keep vampires away.

Sunday, 11 October 2015

For today's countdown to Halloween post, I have decided that I would write a true haunting post. Sort of. I have to tell you right now that I am very skeptic regarding any claims of the supernatural and don't believe ghosts exist. I don't watch real haunting programs or care much about psychics or mediums. That said, I love local legends, old folklore and all sort of ghost stories. For me, "true haunting" are the stuff to inspire fiction, the fictitious haunting that are so more fun.

When my wife and went on holidays in Devon, we discovered that ghosts were part of the tourist industry there. Every town and almost every place had its own local ghost, every tourist shop had plenty of books and booklets about ghosts of Devon or "true tales" of the supernatural (like this one). Strange term, by the way, true tale. A tale is never true, even if it is based on a true story. The moment it becomes a tale, it ceases to be. So this is how we learned about Berry Pomeroy Castle, which is allegedly the most haunted castle in England. As the castle is near Totnes where we were staying, we decided to go there by taxi.

Berry Pomeroy Castle is situated in the middle of a wood and is absolutely a delight to see and visit. The surrounding woods themselves are worth a visit. Its construction dates back from the Middle Ages, but more was built during the Elizabethan era. Legends said that it is haunted by a number of ghosts: the White Lady, the Blue Lady (who apparently lures visitors to their death by making them fall off a tower) and the ghost of Margaret Pomeroy (imprisoned by her jealous sister Eleonor, who may also be haunting the place). The stories often blend together, so we don't know how many ghosts there really are. In one of the many booklets I had bought at that time, it was said the castle has an overwhelming aura of malevolence when you visit it. That is absolutely ridiculous. I knew about its ghostly history when I went there and I thought it was a charming place. The taxi driver on the way back told us that some filming crew who came to shoot a documentary at the castle from dusk till dawn called for taxis in the middle of the night: they could not stand the place anymore, finding it far too spooky for their taste. It must be very eerie when night falls, I am sure, but I think the filming crew was victim of confirmation bias. In any case, we did not see any ghost, just a beautiful castle. And if you are visiting Devon, you would be doing yourself a great disservice not to visit it out of fear of ghosts. Haunted or not, Berry Pomeroy Castle is a beauty to behold.